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Said No-one ever … well not today anyway … well alright, slightly over dramatised … said no-one today, that mattered anyway!

Why the tanty??

I had a gi-normous day today … profoundly difficult and profoundly victorious, in more than one way!

The long-awaited ACC assessment – that I laid a complaint about – that has taken approximately 3 years to get – that may see my $35 per week grow by … a little bit more, hopefully – Yeah … well that; I had that today.

I have been nervous as fuck about it for the past few days as I found out I had the appointment on Friday for today. Usually I’d kick up a stink about that, cos I need a hell of a lot longer to prep for shit like that … but cos I’d waited so long for it, I agreed to it … and have quietly prepared ever since.

I wasn’t going to write about it or talk about it with anyone … didn’t want to jinx the process 😉

But I prepped. Made sure the partner was available to take me … got my ‘kit’ ready … downloaded travel appropriate, distraction, ‘happy’ music and tried to relax. In between ‘quakes’ I tried to remember that this has been a long time coming and I wasn’t going to miss it … I’d ‘medicate’ if need be, just to get Me there.

I had about 3 hours sleep last night, but remained calm. And somewhere in between planning what to wear and finding at drink bottle at 4am, I had a thought ..

I’d been discussing with a fellow blogger, my dislike of the wind … earthquakes etc … that they were ‘unpredictable’. She said something interesting … to the effect … that a tree ‘bends’ with the wind, it doesn’t stay rigid. In all my planning for the unpredictable, I had severely taken the ‘joy’ out of everything … well was hard pressed to find any joy actually. Well as I was planning what to wear, I headed for the comfortable shit first … reason … less hassle. Then I found a dress I hadn’t worn in ages, and it made me smile. So I found my old leather jacket and my sneakers to wear with it … and I smiled again. I actually felt good. When I woke up at 8, after my hour’s nap lol … I looked outside and it was pissing down with rain, that I don’t mind, but it was also windy and fucking freezing! My lovely little dress was not going to cut it … at all. Fuck fuck fuckaroo … was the track I was heading down, cos my well thought out plans had been fucked up by nature … again … when I remembered the ‘wind’ analogy. So, moments later, whilst sitting on the toilet, I was trying to figure out how to ‘bend with the wind’, and enjoy it … fuck!

After my business, I headed back to the room where my lovely little dress was all laid out … put it away … and tried to find something else that would make me smile … and I did 🙂 Another dress, not anything like the other, that I hadn’t worn in like, forever … then i found a top and some nice red stockings … matched them up with my leather jacket and sneakers … and wahlah!! I smiled … I had just learnt how to bend it like beckham instead of having a panic attack because my shit had been disturbed.

Hurdle 1, done!

I went about my morning routine … coffee … coffee … breakfast and … coffee; I did the shopping online to be delivered when we got home … and then lo and behold, Mr bursts out of the room, hollering “How much did you spend on shopping, I’ve only got $40 left … fuck it all” and proceeded to have a man-sized tantrum.

Now usually, at such a pivotal time and moment for Me, I’d freak, toss my cookies, cancel any appointments and have One Outs with big mouth. ‘Don’t you fucken talk to me like that’ … ‘I spent as much as we needed’ … ‘My spending is our fucken spending, don’t fucken forget that , cunt’ … ‘Where’d the rest of YOUR fucken money go then?? Oh that’s right, you didn’t pay Your fucken parking ticket, or Your doctors bill … both went to the fucken debt collectors and Yes that’s right, like I said last fucken week … If you don’t pay those bastards they will take what you owe out of your pay check!!’ … ‘Fucker’ …

But instead, feeling rather ‘bendy’ … I breathed … focussed on the fact that I needed to get to my appointment and this cunt was my ride … but like fuck was I going to be intimidated by a man size tantrum or engage in any kind of discussion re ‘missing’ money right … now. I needed to do ME. So I did the only rational thing I knew … and I ignored his funky ass.

I continued to get my shit together … I got in the car … turned on my music and sang as loudly and joyously as I fucking could … I took photos … I breathed some more … I sipped on my water … and I sang even louder.

I had given him previous instructions of which route to take to minimise stress, and he did. Good.

We got to the appointment early and Partner sat in the car … trying to sulk. I looked at him and said ‘I told you I need you to come in with me until I’m settled, then you can go’ … he reluctantly got out of the car and came in with me.

It was a Psychological Assessment … Impairment assessment thingy … I got to re-live my history of sexual assault as a child … with details … dates … positions … feelings … faces … Yeah … I got to re-live that shit again, because that’s how these cunts like to assess shit. It went on for nearly 4 fucking hours.

The Partner stayed for the first 10 minutes then left. Fine.

I did what I needed too.

I lined up the coasters on the table … I fiddled with the ornament in the middle of the table … I took off my shoes … moved my seat … turned off the down lights … announced that I’d be swearing liberally as that’s how I talk usually and trying to be polite only gives me a headache … The psychologist nodded his approval … not that I was looking or asking for it.

But that’s what I did. 4 hours later … I was fucked!!

When I left the office I felt like I had been run over by a bulldozer … my eyes were blurry, I was shaky and nearing tears. But I had expected that … and prepared … with chocolate chip cookies … which I ate all the way home … whilst listening to my music … again. I had one slight panic attack at the lights but had brought an ice pack for my face … that helped.

So while I was stoked to have ‘completed’ this mission with minimal ‘after effects’, sort of … I was waiting for a “How did you go dear?” … “Are you OK?” … “Do you want a cup of tea?” … something.

But I got nothing. Not a word. Not an encouragement. Not a fucking high-five … nuddah!

Usually I would be devastated but I think I’m too fucked to give 2 shits really … but it has fucked Me off … and it is something I’m going to address with his Royal Sulkiness before the week is out ….

After, I have taken care of Me.

After, I have High Fucking Fived my own shit.

After, I have bought myself a bitching coffee from the Cafe tomorrow.

After, I’ve finished listening too and posting all the songs that make me feel OK.

After, I have finished going on about it on My Blog.

After …. after, I have done right by ME.

Not cos no other cunt will … but in spite of it … and because …

I fucking deserve it … and I deserve an explanation.

I won’t be treated like that and let that shit slide. Not anymore!

—– The one compliment I did get today, which I took … was from the psychologist. As we were nearing the end of all this shit … He looks up, moves his glasses down his nose, and says with quite an interested and stern look … “How the fuck are you still ‘here’? … You have a strength that is rare … do you know that?”

Like this:

I watched ‘Experimenter’ the other day … true story about the social psychologist Stanley Milgram. I studied his book and experiments when I did Psychology and Sociology … 2 different reasons of course.

In Milgrims 1961 ‘experiments’, he looked at humans ‘willingness to obey’. This was measured by the willingness to electrocute another person, if directed to do so.

1 person was given the ‘power’ to shock another, until the person running the ‘test’ told them to stop. Even though the 2nd person, in the other room, receiving the ‘shocks’ (but not really), would cry out when they got the questions wrong and the voltage was increased … most of those peeps doing the ‘jolting’, didn’t stop, because the dude in charge told them to keep going.

Would have been nice to have a decent heads up … but oh well. Apparently todays session with the shrink (psychologist) was the last one. As it turns out, ACC don’t allocate so many sessions, they allocate a timeframe … and apparently that timeframe is up. Did they let me know … No. Did they let the shrink know … Possibly. Have they paid the shrink yet … No. Assholes.

But anyway, with that rant out-of-the-way…

I have to focus on what I have achieved so far…

That I can walk to the mail box by myself.

Into the back yard by myself.

That I can walk to the shop by myself.

The beach by myself.

I can walk without a stick.

I can walk without the breath pacer thingy.

I can ride in the car.

I can ride in the front seat of the car.

I can sleep without medication now.

I can sleep up to 9 hours some nights.

The nightmares have minimised.

I know how to breathe my way through things.

I have tools for panic attacks that aren’t medication.

I’m not afraid of my feelings.

I know how to ground myself.

I know what I need to do to get my senses ‘un-heightened’.

I can talk to a stranger.

I can enjoy things.

I smile at things.

I smile at me 🙂

And there’s more, that I’ll keep reminding myself of over the next few days, so as not to freak out, that my main source of therapy, back up, re-training, life line has now been terminated.

After my discussion with the shrink last week, this was my first appointment back. And it was productive 🙂 We went over our ‘misunderstanding’ in more depth and I got to hear a bit about her line of work ~ with the kiddy fuckers. She didn’t go into details ~ but explained that her talk of cynicism, that I had taken on board, was actually a reference to her and her line of work. Somewhere between her accent and ‘cultural’ difference, and my heightened anxiety, I had taken on board something that she was referring to, in the first person. She explained it today.

That because of the ‘type’ of person she works with; there is a line where your ‘distaste’ for them, can move into cynicism that means you can’t be effective in the work you do with them. That while a sense of humour between her and her colleagues was necessary, it was a thin line between moving from humour to distaste to cynicism.

I got that; From working in Youth Justice. There was an extremely thin line between ‘helping’ them and disliking them ~ especially when some of their crimes were heinous and they were so young. Sometimes compassion wasn’t enough and humour was necessary – but sometimes, that wasn’t appropriate.

Anyway ~ I got what she was saying. And appreciated her apology. Which was more based on, that she shouldn’t have said anything … I didn’t need anything else to fuel my fire or to process.

So we will be doing more EMDR next session; around the waiting thing … the anticipation of things … that shit does me in!

We finish in July now, and that makes me nervous … so I’m going to have to work on that too.

The ‘cunty’ part of the day was prior to the shrink though. And it did me in for the remainder of the day.

My doctor is hell’a slow. He’s efficient-ish, but slow. And I think I’ve talked about this shit before … but … there is a serious lack of available doctors here, and I’ve tried changing my doctor. But the waiting lists are long (like years long) and the emergency ones are fresh out of doctor college (so I’m not keen!)… and a couple of years ago, all I wanted was my meds, so I have put up with my current doctor…for far too long!

Alongside that, ACC, who assist with my ‘accident’ rehabilitation ~ yes that’s right, Sexual Assault of a Minor, according to them, is an ‘accident’ (but that’s another story!) ~ are also SLOWER THAN A SLOTH when it comes to helpful rehabilitation (of sorts)!

Add these things to a PTSD mix and it’s not a cocktail for holistic health.

And I’ve put up with it for so long, because I didn’t have the stamina to deal with either of these assholes.

But today, I got into the doctors…which is always hard; PTSD hard (travel, smells, lights, people blah blah), and while I have progressed and can handle my shit abit better … it’s still hard. So I get in there, to get my ACC papers that I have been waiting for nearly a month for, and he tells me he can’t do them in that short space of time.

Well, I lost my shit.

‘Why haven’t you done them’ ‘I pay for my appointments, I want my shit done’ ‘If you couldn’t do them, why bring me in?’ ‘You understand how fucking hard it is to get in here ay?’ ‘And how long am I supposed to wait for them now??? Fucks sake’

In amongst all that, the tears and snot started flowing and he was trying to tell me how busy he had been and I’m saying I couldn’t give two fucks … the panic attack set in and i started hyperventilating and he ushers me out of the room into another …

My fuck I was angry!!

I sobbed and snotted and breathed and did that so loudly the nurse next door came in to see if I was alright to which I abruptly said HELL NO.

The partner arrived and the doctor tried to explain to the partner what had happened and he took one look at me and clenched his fists … to his credit, he didn’t deck the doctor; he just got me out. The lady at the front desk apologised profusely as she had been reprimanded … and all the while I’m still sobbing and snotting everywhere.

L M F A O

I was angry at me for not being as capable as I ‘used’ to be … for being a PTSD fuckwit … for feeling weak … I was angry at the doctor for being a slow fucker … an incompetent fucktard who was laying the blame on his slow ass on everyone but himself … I was angry at ACC for requiring so many pieces of paper to be ticked and flicked and signed that a small forest was probably harmed during the making of said paper … and that is just to get a process started! … I was just filthy angry!

And still am.

But what was good, was because I had snotted and sobbed and hyperventilated a shitload before I got back into the car … the panic attack lasted about 10 minutes as opposed to a half hour or so … it reminded me of when I went to the dentist.

Because I had ‘vented’ what was actually going on in me, instead of holding onto it … no matter ‘how’ it came out … I felt a shitload better. Exhausted, but relieved.

What I do about the rest of this is to be decided when I’ve rested and gathered my thoughts properly.

In the meantime … all I know is …

PTSD sucks ass.

Our medical system sucks ass.

Our ACC system sucks ass.

On a way lighter and more pleasant note … we picked up our oldest Moko for a couple of days … and he is just delightful 🙂

The following has been bugging me since our last appointment, and I need to explain as it may effect how i view future treatment.

1. At our last appointment I told you a bit about my blogging, and that I’d discovered writing/taking the piss out of pedophiles; was quite cathartic and i was finding relief from it. I don’t think I went into a long explanation of this … but touched on that I was taking the piss out of the ‘size’ of their dicks pretty much. You responded by asking how many pedophiles did I actually know. Then you talked about your work with them and that my statements were inaccurate but you understood i was venting. You also said something to the effect of not moving into being cynical.

In a nutshell, I found this quite an offensive response. I get what your getting at, but really I don’t care to know how inaccurate or generalised my statements of pedophiles are. Theyre all assholes as far as im concerned … period. And I find great pleasure in taking the piss out of them.

What concerns me though, is that if this is your underlying thought pattern, are you able to administer ‘therapy’ objectively with me?

So with that said, I felt a whole lot better … until …

The shrink replied …

Firstly she apologised that I felt offended. TICK

Secondly she explained the conversation from her perspective (not intrusively), and noted that her reply was intended to be in humour, following the lines of the humour that I had been writing about. That she had realised in that instance that no matter how she responded I was possibly going to be offended so she was careful to craft an appropriate response for the conversation, but it seems that she had failed anyway. And was sorry for that. TICK

Thirdly she left the decision whether she was suitable to continue therapy with me, up to me. And urged me to base that decision on my therapy and the results up until this point. TICK.

I got her explanation, and it felt like a little light shone on the opposite side of the room … her side … i got to see shit from her side.

Quite uncomfortable …

So, after a bit of pontification … this is what I came up with.

Somewhere in between my humour and her humour, we had a cross-cultural difference.

Somewhere between my experience and her experience, we had a cross-cultural difference.

I felt abit like an idiot.

And this is the most important –

~ i need to say what i need to say, IMMEDIATELY, no matter what the outcome … because in that saying, shit can be worked out immediately; misunderstandings, intended or not, can be worked out immediately ~

So … I ended up apologising … eating a rather large slice of humble pie ;).

And I thought, this isn’t something I want to talk about on my blog…not after all the whining I did about the shrink …

But then I thought, fuck it … its just the stuff I need to blog about!

So, as I sit here typing, with a face full of the only thing my attempt at gardening produced this season …. one zucchini! … one would think I’m having a healthy, self fulfilled, self-indulgent moment …

However I’ve fried the fuck out of said zucchini with half a pound of butter and lathered it with just as much salt. I’m not sure if that still makes it healthy for my physical well-being … but it is hugely hugely satisfying for my mental, emotional and spiritual well-being!! Yes, my physical well-being may suffer the consequences of this binge … but all of Me really does Not Give A Fuck at present 😉

Hollah!

So, introspection regarding the shrink has come to an interlude – possible end.

I’ve rescheduled our next appointment for a couple of weeks. Practical things have come up … but honestly, I could change these … but Nahhhhhh. I’m going to use this time to …. do other shit.

Like this:

I tend to be introverted, reflective … analytical. It’s been my ‘go to’. It’s been where I was most comfortable. Overall though, this ‘go to’ has been put on the back burner and replaced with a slightly more ‘go with the emotion/flow’; ‘say what you feel’, kind of routine. It’s helped with the expressive part of me; its helped me to not fall into a dissociative role; its helped with the anxiety. In a previous post somewhere, I discovered that most of my anxiety / panic, came from the fear of not being able to express whatever was happening internally. Hence adopting the ‘say whats on your mind bitch’, routine.

However, over the last few days, I’ve come to a bit of a hiccup … as in, the things that I’ve come across, have stumped me and my response to them has been ‘unknown’; I’ve kind of returned to the ‘what do i think’, ‘what do i feel’, ‘how do i react’, ‘ lets not react at all’ .. place.

And I’m uncomfortable with it.

The shrink thing has me annoyed … doubting …

And I am trying to move back into the ‘its got more to do with her’ kind of response; than taking her bullshit remarks on board.

What rips my fucking ration book though, is that she is in the majority of peeps with that kind of fucked up thought. Hers has a hefty educational, institutional degree behind it. She also has one of those, ‘I am the professional, thou shalt not argue or disagree with my authority’ type batons to wield.

Unfortunately, i have never adhered to the professional or authoritative opinion or version of how things should be. Usually to my detriment.

Yesterday was a bit of a fucker … I had prepared, as usual … but had that squirming in the tummy that you get when your just not so sure … i should’ve listened to it!

The shrink was booked in for 1pm, and I managed to do the front seat of the car all the way into town, but was nervous … more than I have been for a while. But, hey, that’s life ay … so I breathed … to the mantra of “You are ok girlfriend … breath, breath, breath”. That worked until the big set of lights before we hit the other side of town … I decided to exit and hit the back seat for those puppies cos I was already sweating like a rapist and not really finding the mantra much comfort by that stage.

We got to the shrinks in one piece, but I felt like I’d been run over by a train … and looked a bit like it too!

Got to my ‘shrink chair’ … breathed …ready to commence some serious therapy shit. My plan was to finish the EMDR that we had started a couple of weeks prior, re: panic attack whilst waiting!

But … the shrink had a different idea.

In recent visits to the office, ‘therapy’ has made a bit of a turn for … I’m not sure what it is yet … she talks a lot … pulls out new ‘toys’ to try for anxiety etc. The latest ones include a rather expensive app that taps into your brainwaves … to help with sleep, relaxation, anxiety blah blah. Yesterdays one includes light and sound therapy, apparently recently used on army personnel.

Hmmmm.

She did her intro … ‘hows the week been’ bullshit … I gave her the bullet points …

In amongst the week that was, I gave her a brief run down of my blogging discoveries … namely, taking the piss out of kiddy fuckers … and the relief that this was bringing …

I watched her eyebrow raise … then the other one … and then the mouth slightly change … uh oh …

And then she did it …she did what they all do … but in a more psychological, technical, ‘I am intellectual’, tone …

~ her response …”So, how many actual pedophiles do you know??”

Long pause.

“Because I work with them in the prisons and I’m pretty sure what you are saying isn’t accurate.”

Long pause.

WAIT. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?

And as I started to respond to that, she rambled off into…

“yes I know you are just venting but you need to be careful it doesn’t move into cynicism…”

So,,,….where does this leave me? I’m not really sure at the moment. As always I know I need to respond…and I will…but I am extremely fucking unsure of the ‘how’ at the moment.

Needless to say the rest of yesterday was hard … with that dialogue running in the back ground. I was supposed to meet a lady about an art collective thing I am wanting to join eventually … that’s another blog … but its a big deal for me … but I didn’t get there … I had a half scale panic attack instead, fuck it all. With a big dollop of ‘argument with partner’ for the next 3 hours … oh joy.

But today, reflecting … I know the conversation with the shrink has seriously done me in some how … and I don’t know quite how to respond yet … so I blog instead; thank fuck for blogging ay 🙂

Like this:

Part way through ‘therapy’ last year, the shrink suggested I do a type of diary thingy, that involved documenting in a day, 3 things.

What I was grateful for

What I enjoyed

What made me smile

Now these are my abbreviated and re-analysed ‘What I’s’…she had more technical and flouncy psychological linguistics for them…in a nutshell though…

The essence was to re train the mind to focus on the good stuff (thereby re training the emotions and the physical being as well)…that whether or not I recognised it within a day, there was good stuff.

I guess the thing with PTSD and all the other fucked up shit that goes along with it; your being becomes almost hardwired for the intense; the unpredictable; the terrifying; the hard core shit. It’s not a negative thing, as in ‘your a pessimistic person’ type thing; it’s the reality of having lived through some horrifying fucked up shit! Simple. It’s your brains; emotions; physicality; your beings, way of surviving and thriving. I would quote some bullshit psychological or primeval terminology to back up this theory…but I can’t be fucked! It is what it is…and for me, this is the truth the I’m coming to understand. This shit is different than the anxiety caused by too many people in a mall or supermarket; or intense noise that puts the nerves on edge…PTSD enhances that anxiety, for sure. But I’m beginning to see, that for me, they are separate…well have separate origins…however, they are still part of my being…who I am; what I struggle with; what I am overcoming; what I am reconciling.

So back to the shrinks thing…focussing on the ‘positive’. When she said it’d be a good idea to keep this diary thing; typical me went ‘pfft’…but I did it anyway…because…as I have said before…when you get all fucked up and have tried virtually anything to get un-fucked up…you’ll try something else as well! And what did I have to lose, its a god damn diary! It just felt a little ‘fairy’ for me lol.

So after about 3 months of trying my bestest to come up with those three points daily…and it was a primal head fuck! … it became easier.

After a while I realised that the things that I had thought were reasons to be grateful or thankful or smily or happy…were not really what I thought at all.

Turns out, theres a shit load of things that I am grateful for…that I enjoy or that make me smile…I just hadn’t noticed because I had been to busy doing the PTSD hypervigilance routine.

Soooo,…I don’t do New Years resolution per se, but I decided that this year, I would document what actually does make me smile in a day…it may be that I’m grateful or thankful or whatever, but those things always make me smile, I’ve discovered. They’re not things that other people may smile at…but they are my little slices of heaven!

So that’s why you’ll see…the 365 reasons to smile…daily, from me. They have a purpose…and that purpose is my healing and reconciliation 🙂